Welcome to Venice, which could claim the title as the oldest non-retirement city in America.

The median age in Venice is 66.7, according to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. It ranks sixth nationally among cities with populations above 20,000 — but with an asterisk: The five cities ahead of Venice, such as The Villages near Orlando, are designed as retirement communities.

Not only does more than half of the population of Venice qualify for Social Security and Medicare, but the population of younger people is tiny: Only 4.3 percent of the population is in Gleba's 25-34 age group, and just 2.2 percent are ages 15 to 19.

Venice does not see itself as strictly a retirement community. It has a rebuilt high school near the center of town and a skateboard shop near the main drag. A Little League baseball complex is nearby.

“We don't market to one specific demographic,” Chamber of Commerce President John Ryan said. “We embrace the retirement community, but we are also a community for all ages.”

But particularly in season, when many part-time seniors return to Venice, it is common to see sights that in other areas would be unusual: an 85-year-old hospital volunteer wheeling a patient to his room; a YMCA exercise class filled with sweating 70-somethings; and restaurants crowded at 5 p.m. and cleared out by 9 p.m.

Another sign are service clubs such as the American Legion and Moose Lodge, which are struggling to keep up membership around the country, but are packed on a regular basis in Venice.

Edwina Anthony, 88, and her husband spent seven months of the year in Venice for 20 years. Anthony, now a widow, has been a year-round resident for nearly four years.

One of the lures of Venice, for her, is that age is relative.

“I never feel old,” Anthony said.

Even octogenarians who would be the oldest residents in other communities know other Venetians who are even older. Anthony said a 105-year-old woman in her church recently died and that another parishioner there is 112.

Another reason many seniors, such as herself, do not feel elderly is because Venice provides them with limitless opportunities to volunteer, Anthony said — an often unsung benefit to the entire community of having so many active retirees.

“You don't have to stay home here,” said Anthony, who sells used books at the Friends of the Venice Library bookshop. “You feel that you have a town to belong to.”

Naturally, some teenagers have a different view.

Misho Cemovich, a 17-year-old junior at Venice High, said he does not plan to move back to Venice after he graduates from college.

He said he often feels like older residents expect people his age to behave as if they are in a retirement community.

As he and friends Stone Wilson and Ben Nicholas gathered at Obee's sub shop near the high school recently, they said they cannot count the number of times elderly residents have called the police on them for seemingly benign activities: riding their bikes on the sidewalk, driving in the fast lane or looking downright suspicious at the beach.

It did not help matters that the city a few years ago passed a law barring skateboarders on the downtown sidewalks, a move that was seen as an affront to teenagers having innocent fun.

Mayor John Holic, 66, knows that younger people in Venice often complain that most activities appear to be geared toward older residents.

“I have gone to high school student government to ask for input and ideas,” Holic said. “One (City) Council meeting three years ago, young people came in and said they would like to see more things. I challenged them to form a committee, but they never came back . . .

“To me, I can't sit back and tell a young person what's good for them. I need that input from younger folks as to what they need, what's wanted and see what we can do to accomplish it.”

What may surprise some people is that Venice is actually getting younger.

The new Census data shows Venice's median age at 66.7, down from 67.6 two years ago and 69 in 2000.

Venice falls behind Sun City Center and The Villages to rank as third among Florida communities with the highest median ages.

Those other communities in the nation with higher median ages (which include Arizona's Sun City, Sun City Center, and Green Valley), as do Florida's Sun City and The Villages, specifically market themselves as retirement meccas. They stress that they cater to seniors, not families with children.

With its schools and athletic programs for kids, Venice makes no such claim.

Indeed, some in Venice are trying to give the city a different image than just a good place to retire. Although the city's website includes a video about “health care and senior living,” it gives equal billing to topics such as real estate, education, tourism and shopping and dining.

Katie Council, chairwoman of Venice Area Young Professionals, said changes are making Venice more attractive to younger people, particularly families.

“The age range that's college-aged aren't moving to Venice; the people coming here are young families because it's low in crime and it's a great place to raise a family,” she said. “I think downtown . . . is already progressing. Daiquiri Deck came into town, more (places) are opening that are sympathetic to the crowd that wants more nightlife.”

But Council concedes Venice has a long way to go to win the youth vote.

“I've had folks come to visit, and they'll sit with me in a restaurant and they'll say, 'Are there really all these old people here?' But I don't even notice. It's just part of my life.”

So, why do so many seniors flock to Venice?

Venice's reputation as a retirement destination is rooted in its history.

When the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers acquired the town from founder Fred Albee in 1925, it envisioned Venice as a sunny resort town for its retiree members.

That reputation changed after Florida's land boom bust and the Brotherhood ran into dire financial troubles. The Great Depression caused a severe loss in Venice's year-round population.

Starting in 1932, the city became noticeably more youthful as it started getting a dependable, seasonal boost in population as the winter home of a prominent military school.

In the decades since that academy closed in 1970, retirees from across the nation again gravitated toward Venice.

“There are a multitude of reasons,” said Tom Harlow, manager of the Senior Friendship Center for the Venice area. “Some come down as snowbirds and decide to stay. Some came here because the (Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey) circus was based here. Some come because of the cost of living or the weather.”

Northerners searching for a place to retire in Florida initially decide if they prefer the east or west coast, Ryan said. Those who select the west coast tend to tour it from Clearwater to Naples.

“Some of them keep bouncing back to Venice,” Ryan said.

He attributes Venice's appeal for retirees to its natural resources, arts, entertainment, outdoor activities and quality health care. Those attributes, he noted, often get Venice mentioned in various periodicals with articles suggesting places to retire.

For some, the initial lure is not Venice but larger, better-known Sarasota.

“I originally came down to Sarasota, not knowing where I wanted to live,” said 61-year-old Lore Stewart, who retired as a flight attendant in Ohio and moved to Venice two years ago.

While visiting Sarasota, she decided to explore Venice as well. She preferred Venice.

“The area is beautiful,” Stewart said. “It has everything I'm looking for. I love the outdoors, the arts, the Gulf.”

Sarasota has those features as well, Harlow said. Yet some retirees regard Sarasota as too busy or overdeveloped for their tastes.

A joke, told more often in Sarasota than in Venice, is that Sarasota is where your parents go to retire; Venice is where your grandparents go.

“When we lived in Punta Gorda, we would come up here to go to the jetties and to the restaurants downtown,” Heinowitz said. “There wasn't much happening in Punta Gorda.”

Heinowitz said Venice appealed to him because of its activities, such as the sculpture class he is taking at the Venice Art Center.

His classmate, 84-year-old Robert A. Hamblin, retired from the U.S. Air Force as a colonel in 1984.

“I had served in a lot of cold places,” said the former resident of Wyoming, Montana, New Jersey and Michigan. “I wanted warmth.”

Hamblin did not come to the Venice area because he heard it was a retiree mecca, though.

“I read in a magazine it was good for salt water fishing,” said Hamblin, who frequently gets out on the Gulf with a fishing guide.

Dixie Hoffman, 80, moved to Venice 30 years ago.

Her husband took a job with a financial firm that required him to travel in Florida and they could live wherever they chose in the state. Charmed by the presence of the circus, they considered Venice to be unique.

The circus left. But the Hoffmans stayed.

When Hoffman, who used to work in a downtown dress shop, and her husband reached retirement age, she said, “we felt blessed that we already happened to be in the place where we wanted to retire. It still has the aura of a sleepy little town. And people are so friendly here.”

Nancy Heart, who teaches the sculpture class at the art center, is a second-generation retiree in Venice.

She moved from Connecticut to Venice 10 years ago to care for her elderly mother. The former clinical social worker decided to make it her retirement home as well.

“I knew I would come here eventually,” Heart said.

Ryan thinks a growing segment of Venice's retired population will be current residents who are still of working age, such as himself.

“Growing up here, I thought about where I would go when I retire,” Ryan said, “and I think I found the answer.”

<p><em>VENICE</em> - Sarah Gleba experienced culture shock when she moved here from Cleveland six years ago to take a job as an office manager at a dermatology firm.</p><p>The 27-year-old was stunned to find so few people her age and so many people her grandparents' ages.</p><p>“It's so different,” Gleba said. “In Cleveland . . . everywhere you turn, there's someone your age there.”</p><p>Welcome to Venice, which could claim the title as the oldest non-retirement city in America.</p><p>The median age in Venice is 66.7, according to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. It ranks sixth nationally among cities with populations above 20,000 — but with an asterisk: The five cities ahead of Venice, such as The Villages near Orlando, are designed as retirement communities.</p><p>Not only does more than half of the population of Venice qualify for Social Security and Medicare, but the population of younger people is tiny: Only 4.3 percent of the population is in Gleba's 25-34 age group, and just 2.2 percent are ages 15 to 19.</p><p>Venice does not see itself as strictly a retirement community. It has a rebuilt high school near the center of town and a skateboard shop near the main drag. A Little League baseball complex is nearby.</p><p>“We don't market to one specific demographic,” Chamber of Commerce President John Ryan said. “We embrace the retirement community, but we are also a community for all ages.”</p><p>But particularly in season, when many part-time seniors return to Venice, it is common to see sights that in other areas would be unusual: an 85-year-old hospital volunteer wheeling a patient to his room; a YMCA exercise class filled with sweating 70-somethings; and restaurants crowded at 5 p.m. and cleared out by 9 p.m.</p><p>Another sign are service clubs such as the American Legion and Moose Lodge, which are struggling to keep up membership around the country, but are packed on a regular basis in Venice.</p><p>Edwina Anthony, 88, and her husband spent seven months of the year in Venice for 20 years. Anthony, now a widow, has been a year-round resident for nearly four years.</p><p>One of the lures of Venice, for her, is that age is relative.</p><p>“I never feel old,” Anthony said.</p><p>Even octogenarians who would be the oldest residents in other communities know other Venetians who are even older. Anthony said a 105-year-old woman in her church recently died and that another parishioner there is 112.</p><p>Another reason many seniors, such as herself, do not feel elderly is because Venice provides them with limitless opportunities to volunteer, Anthony said — an often unsung benefit to the entire community of having so many active retirees.</p><p>“You don't have to stay home here,” said Anthony, who sells used books at the Friends of the Venice Library bookshop. “You feel that you have a town to belong to.”</p><p>Naturally, some teenagers have a different view.</p><p>Misho Cemovich, a 17-year-old junior at Venice High, said he does not plan to move back to Venice after he graduates from college.</p><p>He said he often feels like older residents expect people his age to behave as if they are in a retirement community.</p><p>As he and friends Stone Wilson and Ben Nicholas gathered at Obee's sub shop near the high school recently, they said they cannot count the number of times elderly residents have called the police on them for seemingly benign activities: riding their bikes on the sidewalk, driving in the fast lane or looking downright suspicious at the beach.</p><p>It did not help matters that the city a few years ago passed a law barring skateboarders on the downtown sidewalks, a move that was seen as an affront to teenagers having innocent fun.</p><p>Mayor John Holic, 66, knows that younger people in Venice often complain that most activities appear to be geared toward older residents.</p><p>“I have gone to high school student government to ask for input and ideas,” Holic said. “One (City) Council meeting three years ago, young people came in and said they would like to see more things. I challenged them to form a committee, but they never came back . . .</p><p>“To me, I can't sit back and tell a young person what's good for them. I need that input from younger folks as to what they need, what's wanted and see what we can do to accomplish it.”</p><p>What may surprise some people is that Venice is actually getting younger.</p><p>The new Census data shows Venice's median age at 66.7, down from 67.6 two years ago and 69 in 2000.</p><p>Venice falls behind Sun City Center and The Villages to rank as third among Florida communities with the highest median ages.</p><p>Those other communities in the nation with higher median ages (which include Arizona's Sun City, Sun City Center, and Green Valley), as do Florida's Sun City and The Villages, specifically market themselves as retirement meccas. They stress that they cater to seniors, not families with children.</p><p>With its schools and athletic programs for kids, Venice makes no such claim.</p><p>Indeed, some in Venice are trying to give the city a different image than just a good place to retire. Although the city's website includes a video about “health care and senior living,” it gives equal billing to topics such as real estate, education, tourism and shopping and dining.</p><p>Katie Council, chairwoman of Venice Area Young Professionals, said changes are making Venice more attractive to younger people, particularly families.</p><p>“The age range that's college-aged aren't moving to Venice; the people coming here are young families because it's low in crime and it's a great place to raise a family,” she said. “I think downtown . . . is already progressing. Daiquiri Deck came into town, more (places) are opening that are sympathetic to the crowd that wants more nightlife.”</p><p>But Council concedes Venice has a long way to go to win the youth vote.</p><p>“I've had folks come to visit, and they'll sit with me in a restaurant and they'll say, 'Are there really all these old people here?' But I don't even notice. It's just part of my life.”</p><p>So, why do so many seniors flock to Venice?</p><p>Venice's reputation as a retirement destination is rooted in its history.</p><p>When the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers acquired the town from founder Fred Albee in 1925, it envisioned Venice as a sunny resort town for its retiree members.</p><p>That reputation changed after Florida's land boom bust and the Brotherhood ran into dire financial troubles. The Great Depression caused a severe loss in Venice's year-round population.</p><p>Starting in 1932, the city became noticeably more youthful as it started getting a dependable, seasonal boost in population as the winter home of a prominent military school.</p><p>In the decades since that academy closed in 1970, retirees from across the nation again gravitated toward Venice.</p><p>“There are a multitude of reasons,” said Tom Harlow, manager of the Senior Friendship Center for the Venice area. “Some come down as snowbirds and decide to stay. Some came here because the (Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey) circus was based here. Some come because of the cost of living or the weather.”</p><p>Northerners searching for a place to retire in Florida initially decide if they prefer the east or west coast, Ryan said. Those who select the west coast tend to tour it from Clearwater to Naples.</p><p>“Some of them keep bouncing back to Venice,” Ryan said.</p><p>He attributes Venice's appeal for retirees to its natural resources, arts, entertainment, outdoor activities and quality health care. Those attributes, he noted, often get Venice mentioned in various periodicals with articles suggesting places to retire.</p><p>For some, the initial lure is not Venice but larger, better-known Sarasota.</p><p>“I originally came down to Sarasota, not knowing where I wanted to live,” said 61-year-old Lore Stewart, who retired as a flight attendant in Ohio and moved to Venice two years ago.</p><p>While visiting Sarasota, she decided to explore Venice as well. She preferred Venice.</p><p>“The area is beautiful,” Stewart said. “It has everything I'm looking for. I love the outdoors, the arts, the Gulf.”</p><p>Sarasota has those features as well, Harlow said. Yet some retirees regard Sarasota as too busy or overdeveloped for their tastes.</p><p>A joke, told more often in Sarasota than in Venice, is that Sarasota is where your parents go to retire; Venice is where your grandparents go.</p><p>Ask other retirees why they chose Venice and the answers vary.</p><p>Milt Heinowitz, 83, initially retired in Punta Gorda but 10 years ago decided that he preferred Venice.</p><p>“When we lived in Punta Gorda, we would come up here to go to the jetties and to the restaurants downtown,” Heinowitz said. “There wasn't much happening in Punta Gorda.”</p><p>Heinowitz said Venice appealed to him because of its activities, such as the sculpture class he is taking at the Venice Art Center.</p><p>His classmate, 84-year-old Robert A. Hamblin, retired from the U.S. Air Force as a colonel in 1984.</p><p>“I had served in a lot of cold places,” said the former resident of Wyoming, Montana, New Jersey and Michigan. “I wanted warmth.”</p><p>Hamblin did not come to the Venice area because he heard it was a retiree mecca, though.</p><p>“I read in a magazine it was good for salt water fishing,” said Hamblin, who frequently gets out on the Gulf with a fishing guide.</p><p>Dixie Hoffman, 80, moved to Venice 30 years ago.</p><p>Her husband took a job with a financial firm that required him to travel in Florida and they could live wherever they chose in the state. Charmed by the presence of the circus, they considered Venice to be unique.</p><p>The circus left. But the Hoffmans stayed.</p><p>When Hoffman, who used to work in a downtown dress shop, and her husband reached retirement age, she said, “we felt blessed that we already happened to be in the place where we wanted to retire. It still has the aura of a sleepy little town. And people are so friendly here.”</p><p>Nancy Heart, who teaches the sculpture class at the art center, is a second-generation retiree in Venice.</p><p>She moved from Connecticut to Venice 10 years ago to care for her elderly mother. The former clinical social worker decided to make it her retirement home as well.</p><p>“I knew I would come here eventually,” Heart said.</p><p>Ryan thinks a growing segment of Venice's retired population will be current residents who are still of working age, such as himself.</p><p>“Growing up here, I thought about where I would go when I retire,” Ryan said, “and I think I found the answer.”</p>